Tuesday, April 26, 2016

In case you missed this last week, looks like this high-profile high-rise is pretty close to moving forward (via Curbed Chicago):

The Helmut Jahn designed 73-story tower proposed for 1000 South Michigan is one step closer to construction after approval from the Chicago Plan Commission yesterday. The proposal by New York-based JK Equities and Time Equities is essentially the same concept that was presented to neighbors in a community meeting at the end of February, featuring 506 units split between rental apartments in the lower floors and for-sale condominiums in the upper floors of the tower. The building design begins with a rectilinear footprint at ground level, but flairs outward as it rises, eventually taking on a more trapezoidal form towards the top, which features a private outdoor amenity deck for the future condo dwellers.

The planned development boundary covers not only the present surface parking lot at 1000 South Michigan Avenue, but also the neighboring eight-story building at 1006 South Michigan. It is over this neighboring building that the tower extends outward, similar to an earlier Jahn-designed project at 600 North Fairbanks in Streeterville. In doing so, the development team is making more space available to sell on the higher-priced upper floors while crafting a unique shape for the building. The tower will anchor the southern end of the Historic Michigan Avenue Boulevard District, a landmark district protecting the historic streetwall of facades extending northward from this block towards Randolph Street. While the site is empty and does not presently contribute to the streetwall, the location required negotiations with the Commission on Chicago Landmarks and ultimately resulted in the shortening of the tower's height from an initial 1030 feet to a current proposal topping out at 832 feet.

It's a pretty detailed post by Curbed and frankly gets into very granular development reporting. But it does provide with some good info at the bottom regarding retail and construction start date:

The building will feature 2,700 square feet of ground floor commercial space and will have 13,000 square feet of green roof. A sales center is expected to open by this summer in the neighboring building at 1006 South Michigan while construction is planned to begin in 2017.